where to start????

[ignatiusjk]

I am from the "old school" of photography where you devo the neg and print with an enlarger.I am now just starting to go digital and am not sure where to start. I mostly do landscapes with a 4x5 shooting chromes,b&w and color negs. What type of scanner should I get and what type of printer should I get? I want to be able to print at least 16x20's. Please help, give model #'s. Thanks.

[ignatiusjk]

P.S keep it simple.

[Peter De Smidt]

How much do you want to spend, and how big of prints do you want to make? Do you prefer glossy print or matte ones? How much computer work are you willing to do? For example, will you learn Photoshop? ...

[Greg Lockrey]

Just starting out and with the benifit of 40 years photography experiance, I would get either and Epson 700/750V scanner, or that new Microtec M1, and an Epson 3800 printer, but those Canon and or HP printers that do 17" would be good too. I would also have at my disposal Photoshop CS on up and/or Qimage. I personally have the 750V and 3800. There are better but the costs would be about five times as much for not that much better results. Just my 2c

[Frank Petronio]

Get an Epson v750 flatbed scanner and an Epson 3800 inkjet printer.

And a bigger computer and a Wacom tablet and $1000 of ink and paper and a couple of back up hard drives and a .....

[Walter Calahan]

What Frank Petronio said.

[Brian Ellis]

Scanner - For 4x5 film you'll presumably be limited to a flat bed scanner so Epson 700/750 would be a good choice. 16x20 prints from this scanner are pushing it in terms of technical quality but probably will be o.k. depending on your personal standards for quality. You might do what many people do and save the 16x20 prints for your best photographs and then get a drum scan from a good lab for these. But only you can tell what meets your standards of technical quality and what doesn't. There are people on here who know a lot more about scanners than I do so they may have other ideas but the two Epsons I've owned have always done a good job. The problem with scanners is that there doesn't seem to be middle ground of scanners in the roughly $2000 - $4000 range. You pretty much either buy a relatively inexpensive one like the 700/750 for about $500 or you have to pay $5000 and up for something that produces a noticeable improvement (unless you get into used drum scanners but that's a whole different ball game). At least that's my uninformed impression.

Printer - Epson 3800 if you want to do 16x20 prints. That printer can make prints as wide as 17 inches. There are less expensive printers that only go to 13 inches and would save a good bit of money. I'd avoid HP for now, there have been many complaints about their customer service and mechanical feed problems though plenty of people are happy with them too. I know nothing about Canon printers. One good thing about Epson, other than their quality, is that for many years they were the only manufacturer that was interested in the home photography market. So when you need help you can find thousands and thousands of people who know Epson printers. HP and Canon only recently entered this market and at this point have only a small portion of the market.

Photo Editing Program - Photoshop CS3 is the industry standard. However, there are lesser programs that seem to work well such as Photoshop Elements but I have no experience with them, I've used Photoshop only.

Computer - You should have a bare minimum of a gig of RAM and 2 is better, more is ideal. I've always used PCs and if that's what you use I'd suggest staying with it. You have enough to learn without also having to deal with a switch from PCs to Macs. No doubt some Mac fanatics will tell you that you'll die and go to hell if you don't get a Mac. I stay out of those debates, I've used PCs for my photography work for about 10 years now except for the Macs I used in school. The PCs have all been fine but you can make up your own mind on this one, it's more a computer question than a photography question IMHO.

Good Book - There are so many good Photoshop books around that it's hard to name just one. My favorite is Real World Photoshop by Blatner and Blatner but I don't know whether it's been updated to CS3 yet or not. I'd suggest just going to Barnes and Noble or some similar place and thumbing through the various books to see which you like. Just remember that Photoshop CS3 has only been out for about 6 months so you may still see CS2 books still around. I'd avoid them and make sure the book you get deals with CS3 even though the differences aren't all that great. This assumes, of course, that you buy Photoshop CS3. If there's a community college, university, etc. in your area that teaches a basic photoshop course that would be an ideal way to learn rather than relying solely on a book.

These suggestions are obviously highly personal. Other people will have other, equally good or better, ones. Mine are based on two main considerations. First, that you're just getting started but since you've done darkroom work your standards are fairly high so you don't want the bare bones least expensive stuff you could get away with. And second, trying to keep the already steep learning curve to a manageable minimum. You could switch from a PC to a Mac, you could buy a used drum scanner, you could buy a bunch of Photoshop plug-ins, etc. but then you're adding a lot more to an already steep learning curve. If you bought the things I've suggested you'd be paying about $500 for the scanner, $1200 for the printer, $600 for Photoshop, and about $30 for the book. If money is real tight there are ways of economizing without losing a lot. For example, you could probably find an Epson 4990 flat bed scanner used or refurbished for maybe $150 without giving up any quality in the scans. You could buy Photoshop Elements for about $100 instead of the full blown version for $600. If you have a lot more money to spend then you will have no trouble finding more expensive equipment than what I've suggested here.

Good luck. I abandonded the dark room (except for film developing) about seven years ago after about 20 years of off and on use and I've never regretted it. The digital learning curve is very steep and I sometimes feel more like a computer programmer than a photographer but the results are very very rewarding.

[ignatiusjk]

Get an Epson v750 flatbed scanner and an Epson 3800 inkjet printer.

And a bigger computer and a Wacom tablet and $1000 of ink and paper and a couple of back up hard drives and a .....

How "big" of a computer are we talking? What beandname or model do you reccomend?

[Lenny Eiger]

Scanner - For 4x5 film you'll presumably be limited to a flat bed scanner so Epson 700/750 would be a good choice.

I respectfully, but wholeheartedly disagree with this. I don't think the Epson scanners are a good tool. Find yourself a used Howtek 4500. You will get 4000 dpi of very sharp pixels and pull shadow detail out that you didn't even know was there. Cost ranges from about 3-4K to about 10K, depending on all sorts of things. If you saw the differences between the scanners in terms of sharpness, you wouldn't bother with a flatbed of this type.

As to computer, I would suggest a Mac, filled with as much RAM as the computer will take. When you get over 5 Gigs things go a lot faster.

I prefer the Wide Format Epsons for getting started. There are more parts made of metal than the smaller ones and you will get more consistency. For paper, Hahnemuhle PhotoRag is well, amazing stuff.

For a book, I might try Amadou Diallo's b&w book. Very thorough..

You need to know that it isn't any cheaper than traditional processes, in some ways much more expensive.

Finally, I would find someone that actually knows what they are doing and pay them for a few hours of time to show you the ropes. This can save you a huge amount of time.

Lenny Eiger
EigerStudios

[jetcode]

I respectfully, but wholeheartedly disagree with this. I don't think the Epson scanners are a good tool. Find yourself a used Howtek 4500. You will get 4000 dpi of very sharp pixels and pull shadow detail out that you didn't even know was there. Cost ranges from about 3-4K to about 10K, depending on all sorts of things. If you saw the differences between the scanners in terms of sharpness, you wouldn't bother with a flatbed of this type.

As to computer, I would suggest a Mac, filled with as much RAM as the computer will take. When you get over 5 Gigs things go a lot faster.

I prefer the Wide Format Epsons for getting started. There are more parts made of metal than the smaller ones and you will get more consistency. For paper, Hahnemuhle PhotoRag is well, amazing stuff.

For a book, I might try Amadou Diallo's b&w book. Very thorough..

You need to know that it isn't any cheaper than traditional processes, in some ways much more expensive.


I agree with you. The difference from a quality scanner is night and day. Add an experienced operator. A wealth of great information in this post.



Finally, I would find someone that actually knows what they are doing and pay them for a few hours of time to show you the ropes. This can save you a huge amount of time.


Does this mean you are available locally?

[Dick Hilker]

As a simple approach, I'd suggest looking at the Epson and Microtek scanners, knowing from considerable experience that excellent 4X enlargements are possible unless you insist on subjecting your prints to scrutiny with a loupe: they'll be magnificent when viewed from normal viewing distance. Most scanners are furnished with Photoshop Elements, a perfectly adequate way to get started and perhaps all you'll ever need, unless you plan to turn professional and work with publishers. I use both Elements and Photoshop 7 and, after a month's trial of CS2, decided all the fancy stuff didn't help me make better prints.

If you can afford to buy the Epson 4880, I'd do it: otherwise, the 3800 is a fine printer and should be durable enough for the typical level of amateur production.

It can become very complicated and expensive, but doesn't have to if you stick to the basics until you find that you need to grow beyond the equipment you have. Be prepared to spend more than you expect on ink and paper, but keep in mind that experience is a great teacher and actually making prints will answer many questions as you progress. Have fun!

[Greg Lockrey]

I respectfully, but wholeheartedly disagree with this. I don't think the Epson scanners are a good tool. Find yourself a used Howtek 4500. You will get 4000 dpi of very sharp pixels and pull shadow detail out that you didn't even know was there. Cost ranges from about 3-4K to about 10K, depending on all sorts of things. If you saw the differences between the scanners in terms of sharpness, you wouldn't bother with a flatbed of this type.

As to computer, I would suggest a Mac, filled with as much RAM as the computer will take. When you get over 5 Gigs things go a lot faster.

I prefer the Wide Format Epsons for getting started. There are more parts made of metal than the smaller ones and you will get more consistency. For paper, Hahnemuhle PhotoRag is well, amazing stuff.

For a book, I might try Amadou Diallo's b&w book. Very thorough..

You need to know that it isn't any cheaper than traditional processes, in some ways much more expensive.

Finally, I would find someone that actually knows what they are doing and pay them for a few hours of time to show you the ropes. This can save you a huge amount of time.

Lenny Eiger
EigerStudios

Like I said before, there is always better. Lenny uses the very best, but his scanner costs about $10k and his printer about $40k. When I first got into the digital printing business converting from film, I used a 5mp camera that at that time was state of the art for my scanning. Everyone that was already doing high end scanning and printing said it couldn't be done. Well FWIW, my prints that were sold at the Toledo Art Museum store that were done this way didn't get scrutinized by even the best printing craftsmen until I pointed out how I did it, and only then did the 10x magnifiers come out. I say to you that 90% of people that look at these digital images can't tell.

[Lenny Eiger]

Like I said before, there is always better. Lenny uses the very best, but his scanner costs about $10k and his printer about $40k.

Close - Scanner costs 40K and the printer about 25K... but I am in the business and so these things are simply investments. It's peanuts compared to what it used to cost. The "working day after day" of the Roland is quite worth the extra cost - especially when you don't make a living if you don't print.


When I first got into the digital printing business converting from film, I used a 5mp camera that at that time was state of the art for my scanning. Everyone that was already doing high end scanning and printing said it couldn't be done. Well FWIW, my prints that were sold at the Toledo Art Museum store that were done this way didn't get scrutinized by even the best printing craftsmen until I pointed out how I did it, and only then did the 10x magnifiers come out. I say to you that 90% of people that look at these digital images can't tell.

The 5mp camera was expensive, and so are all the updates, D5, D20, D30, P45, and on and on. For some reason everyone wants to spend money on a camera, but doesn't want to spend it on the scanner, or scanning. If one is using film, it's part of the capture. It's like buying a Leica or Hasselblad or Schneider xyz for the lenses, then using a plastic lens in the darkroom.

As to the "no one else can see it" issue - you are correct. However, I just figure I have to live with myself and I know whether or not I have done my best work...

Lenny

[Lenny Eiger]

Does this mean you are available locally?

Yes. I'm about an hour North of San Francisco.

I will add that I actually went to another printer when I got started and it saved me a ton of time... There is still plenty to figure out, and plenty more to learn, but if you get a good start, it is so much easier..

Lenny
EigerStudios
eiger@eigerstudios.com

[Greg Lockrey]

As to the "no one else can see it" issue - you are correct. However, I just figure I have to live with myself and I know whether or not I have done my best work...

Lenny

I hear you there, but that's how pricing is developed based on what it cost to do a job and overhead. I couldn't moraly charge what you have to charge to make my prints, but then I don't need to either. ;)

[Lenny Eiger]

I hear you there, but that's how pricing is developed based on what it cost to do a job and overhead. I couldn't moraly charge what you have to charge to make my prints, but then I don't need to either. ;)

I think this depends on who you want to be in your life. I say this without any judgement. I don't pretend to have the answer. I was born and bred to be an artist, went to art school, got an MFA in Photography, etc. I had a particular interest in printing which continued to grow. It was quite natural to me to have friends over who couldn't tell the difference between the "A" print and the one hitting the garbage. It's very different when you photograph, or print, from the knowledge and understanding that a Fine Art education can bring. I am likely to repeat the quote that "There is no Art with History." So, when one prints, it isn't a matter of printing for this one client. You have to satisfy the needs of Walker Evans as well, not to mention Fox Talbot. There's an integrity demanded when you know who your ancestors are. These guys may be dead, but they're still watching... ;-)

This is very different from the commercial way of doing things. In some ways, its much stupider. However, one is likely either an artist, or they aren't. Some artists are better at the commerce than others.

The prices of your watercolors suggest that you could afford my printing just fine, if you didn't do it yourself...

Lenny

[Brian Ellis]

Scanner - For 4x5 film you'll presumably be limited to a flat bed scanner so Epson 700/750 would be a good choice. 16x20 prints from this scanner are pushing it in terms of technical quality but probably will be o.k. depending on your personal standards for quality. You might do what many people do and save the 16x20 prints for your best photographs and then get a drum scan from a good lab for these. But only you can tell what meets your standards of technical quality and what doesn't. There are people on here who know a lot more about scanners than I do so they may have other ideas but the two Epsons I've owned have always done a good job. The problem with scanners is that there doesn't seem to be middle ground of scanners in the roughly $2000 - $4000 range. You pretty much either buy a relatively inexpensive one like the 700/750 for about $500 or you have to pay $5000 and up for something that produces a noticeable improvement (unless you get into used drum scanners but that's a whole different ball game). At least that's my uninformed impression.

Printer - Epson 3800 if you want to do 16x20 prints. That printer can make prints as wide as 17 inches. There are less expensive printers that only go to 13 inches and would save a good bit of money. I'd avoid HP for now, there have been many complaints about their customer service and mechanical feed problems though plenty of people are happy with them too. I know nothing about Canon printers. One good thing about Epson, other than their quality, is that for many years they were the only manufacturer that was interested in the home photography market. So when you need help you can find thousands and thousands of people who know Epson printers. HP and Canon only recently entered this market and at this point have only a small portion of the market.

Photo Editing Program - Photoshop CS3 is the industry standard. However, there are lesser programs that seem to work well such as Photoshop Elements but I have no experience with them, I've used Photoshop only.

Computer - You should have a bare minimum of a gig of RAM and 2 is better, more is ideal. I've always used PCs and if that's what you use I'd suggest staying with it. You have enough to learn without also having to deal with a switch from PCs to Macs. No doubt some Mac fanatics will tell you that you'll die and go to hell if you don't get a Mac. I stay out of those debates, I've used PCs for my photography work for about 10 years now except for the Macs I used in school. The PCs have all been fine but you can make up your own mind on this one, it's more a computer question than a photography question IMHO.

Good Book - There are so many good Photoshop books around that it's hard to name just one. My favorite is Real World Photoshop by Blatner and Blatner but I don't know whether it's been updated to CS3 yet or not. I'd suggest just going to Barnes and Noble or some similar place and thumbing through the various books to see which you like. Just remember that Photoshop CS3 has only been out for about 6 months so you may still see CS2 books still around. I'd avoid them and make sure the book you get deals with CS3 even though the differences aren't all that great. This assumes, of course, that you buy Photoshop CS3. If there's a community college, university, etc. in your area that teaches a basic photoshop course that would be an ideal way to learn rather than relying solely on a book.

These suggestions are obviously highly personal. Other people will have other, equally good or better, ones. Mine are based on two main considerations. First, that you're just getting started but since you've done darkroom work your standards are fairly high so you don't want the bare bones least expensive stuff you could get away with. And second, trying to keep the already steep learning curve to a manageable minimum. You could switch from a PC to a Mac, you could buy a used drum scanner, you could buy a bunch of Photoshop plug-ins, etc. but then you're adding a lot more to an already steep learning curve. If you bought the things I've suggested you'd be paying about $500 for the scanner, $1200 for the printer, $600 for Photoshop, and about $30 for the book. If money is real tight there are ways of economizing without losing a lot. For example, you could probably find an Epson 4990 flat bed scanner used or refurbished for maybe $150 without giving up any quality in the scans. You could buy Photoshop Elements for about $100 instead of the full blown version for $600. If you have a lot more money to spend then you will have no trouble finding more expensive equipment than what I've suggested here.

Good luck. I abandonded the dark room (except for film developing) about seven years ago after about 20 years of off and on use and I've never regretted it. The digital learning curve is very steep and I sometimes feel more like a computer programmer than a photographer but the results are very very rewarding.

[Brian Ellis]

I respectfully, but wholeheartedly disagree with this. I don't think the Epson scanners are a good tool. Find yourself a used Howtek 4500. You will get 4000 dpi of very sharp pixels and pull shadow detail out that you didn't even know was there. Cost ranges from about 3-4K to about 10K, depending on all sorts of things. If you saw the differences between the scanners in terms of sharpness, you wouldn't bother with a flatbed of this type.

As to computer, I would suggest a Mac, filled with as much RAM as the computer will take. When you get over 5 Gigs things go a lot faster.

I prefer the Wide Format Epsons for getting started. There are more parts made of metal than the smaller ones and you will get more consistency. For paper, Hahnemuhle PhotoRag is well, amazing stuff.

For a book, I might try Amadou Diallo's b&w book. Very thorough..

You need to know that it isn't any cheaper than traditional processes, in some ways much more expensive.

Finally, I would find someone that actually knows what they are doing and pay them for a few hours of time to show you the ropes. This can save you a huge amount of time.

Lenny Eiger
EigerStudios

[Tyler Boley]

If you are truly starting from scratch, I'd avoid all this shopping. You have a lot of Photoshop to learn, there's no way around it.
I'd spend some money on a good workshop, get some hands on with help from people who know their stuff and are there for you.
Input and output toys can be purchased any time, and all to easily...
Those decisions will also be effected by what you learn.
Tyler